There was a big blizzard yesterday. Petrograd is all covered in snow like a village. The snow is not being cleaned, all street cleaners now occupy important positions in the ministries, they are now chiefs, inspectors, etc.
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I would like to emphasize that I am not kidding, it’s just a fact. Kollontai chose to fill the post of the inspector of the Ekaterininsky Institute the former street cleaner of the same Institute. The city is all white, numb, buried under the snow. It’s -15 degrees frost today.

Trams are barely moving. There’s very little electricity. Some papers weren’t able to publish issues today. They are giving us ⅜ of bread for two days. We are becoming more and more isolated. Bolsheviks are shouting about a “holy” separate war with the Germans. I doubt that any war can be led now at all, thanks to their actions. I think it’s just their last “move” before striking an inevitable, unavoidable vulgar peace.

Every day new “decrees” come out, and there have been so many of them that it seems as though everything in our country has been destroyed and life has become such a confusion that no power on earth could cope with it.

No scientist, historian, sociologist, psychologist could have predicted, could have imagined the depth of the psychological shock that Russia has experienced the moment the monarchy fell.
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The sense of boundless freedom, of liberation from all restrictions, mandatory in any human cohabitation, overwhelmed the population of the empire of 170 plus million people. And here everyone suddenly felt exhausted from the three years of war struggled. It resulted in some paralysis of will.

Russia stopped working at factories and fighting at the front. It’s as if the people lost their ability to follow orders, and the leaders lost their ability to give orders and command. For a moment, Russia’s fate and the war were forgotten. In some villages, peasants started tackling the question of land ownership locally: that is, distributing the landlords’ land and stock. Workers stopped working at factories; they are now trying to get involved in management, removing former directors and engineers from their posts. There’s mass demobilisation at the front.

By decree of the Coalition Government, a directive was issued to move all clocks one hour forward for the summer starting on the 14th of July. The present decree prescribes a return to the usual account of time.

On the way, at 6 P.M., I received, at a station, the following telegram, in code, from Baron Gautsch, who had remained at Brest:

"Russian delegation received following telegram from Petersburg this morning: To General Hoffmann. The Government of the Russian Republic considers it necessary to carry on the further negotiations on neutral ground and proposes removing to Stockholm."
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We talked over the reply to the Petersburg telegram, declining a conference in Stockholm, and further tactics to be followed in case of need. We agreed that if the Russians did not come, we must declare the armistice at an end, and chance what the Petersburgers would say to that.

On this point Kühlmann and I were entirely agreed. Nevertheless, the feeling, both in our party and in that of the Germans, was not a little depressed. Certainly, if the Russians do break off negotiations, it will place us in a very unpleasant position. The only way to save the situation is by acting quickly and energetically with the Ukrainian delegation, and we, therefore, commenced this work on the afternoon of the same day. There is thus at least a hope that we may be able to arrive at positive results with them within reasonable time.

Having destroyed the old courts in the name of the proletariat, the People’s Commissars have thereby strengthened in the consciousness of the “street” its right to “mob trials” – a brutish right indeed.
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Our “street” enjoyed dishing out beatings before the revolution as well, delightedly indulging in this loathsome “sport”. Nowhere are people beaten so often and with such zeal and joy as in this Russia of ours. People have grown all too inured to being “beaten from childhood onwards” – beaten by their parents, by their masters, by the police.